A Stable for Nightmares, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

What was it?

It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approached the strange narrative which I am
about to relate. The events which I purpose detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared to
meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary
courage to face unbelief. I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple and straightforward a
manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the
annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.

I live at No. — Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for
the last two years the reputation of being haunted. The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a large
spiral staircase winding through its centre, while the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some
fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A— — the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial
world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A— — as every one knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long
after, of a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease reached this country and was verified, the
report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No. — was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the widow of its former
owner, and it was inhabited merely by a care-taker and his wife, placed there by the house-agent into whose hands it
had passed for purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors
were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the
night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight,
accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive balusters. The
care-taker and his wife declared they would live there no longer. The house-agent laughed, dismissed them, and put
others in their place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood caught up the story, and
the house remained untenanted for three years. Several persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always before the
bargain was closed they heard the unpleasant rumors and declined to treat any further.

It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who
wished to move farther up town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. — Twenty-sixth Street. Happening to have in her
house rather a plucky and philosophical set of boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she
had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which she wished to remove us. With the exception of
two timid persons — a sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that they would leave — all
of Mrs. Moffat’s guests declared that they would accompany her in her incursion into the abode of spirits.

Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with our new residence.

Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. — than we began to expect the ghosts. We absolutely awaited
their advent with eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. I found myself a person of immense importance,
it having leaked out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story
the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large
drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and every one was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains and a
spectral form.

After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge
that nothing in the remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself.

Things were in this state when an incident took place so awful and inexplicable in its character that my reason
fairly reels at the bare memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was over I repaired, with my
friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed
between the doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We both smoked opium. We knew each other’s secret and
respected it. We enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvellous intensifying of the perceptive
faculties, that boundless feeling of existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole universe — in
short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would not surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will
never — never taste.

On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the doctor and myself drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We
lit our large meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which burned a little black nut of opium,
that, like the nut in the fairy tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings; we paced to and
fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the currents of our thoughts. They would not flow through the sun-lit
channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable reason, they constantly diverged into dark and
lonesome beds, where a continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we flung ourselves on the
shores of the East, and talked of its gay bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden
palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk, and expanded, like the one the fisherman released
from the copper vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision. Insensibly, we yielded to the occult
force that swayed us, and indulged in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the human mind
to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible, when Hammond suddenly said to me, “What do you consider to
be the greatest element of terror?”

The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew. But it now struck me, for the first time, that
there must be one great and ruling embodiment of fear — a King of Terrors, to which all others must succumb. What might
it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe its existence?

“I confess, Hammond,” I replied to my friend, “I never considered the subject before. That there must be one
Something more terrible than any other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague definition.”

“I am somewhat like you, Harry,” he answered. “I feel my capacity to experience a terror greater than anything yet
conceived by the human mind — something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation hitherto supposed incompatible
elements. The calling of the voices in Brockden Brown’s novel of ‘Wieland’ is awful; so is the picture of the Dweller
on the Threshold, in Bulwer’s ‘Zanoni;’ but,” he added, shaking his head gloomily, “there is something more horrible
still than these.”

“Look here, Hammond,” I rejoined, “let us drop this kind of talk, for Heaven’s sake! We shall suffer for it, depend
on it.”

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me to-night,” he replied, “but my brain is running upon all sorts of weird and
awful thoughts. I feel as if I could write a story like Hoffman, to-night, if I were only master of a literary
style.”

“Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I’m off to bed. Opium and nightmares should never be brought
together. How sultry it is! Good-night, Hammond.”

“Good-night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you.”

“To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters.”

We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly and got into bed, taking with me, according
to my usual custom, a book over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon as I had laid my
head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the other side of the room. It was Goudon’s “History of Monsters,”— a
curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which, in the state of mind I had then reached, was
anything but an agreeable companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas until nothing but a
little blue point of light glimmered on the top of the tube, I composed myself to rest.

The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained alight did not illuminate a distance of three
inches round the burner. I desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the darkness and tried to
think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves
on my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be blankness of intellect to keep them out. They still
crowded upon me. While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical inaction I should hasten mental
repose, an awful incident occurred. A Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest, and the
next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat, endeavoring to choke me.

I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The suddenness of the attack, instead of
stunning me, strung every nerve to its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had time to
realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with
all the strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands that had fastened on my throat loosened
their hold, and I was free to breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity. Immersed in the most
profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp
slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in
the shoulder, neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair of sinewy, agile hands, which my
utmost efforts could not confine — these were a combination of circumstances to combat which required all the strength,
skill, and courage that I possessed.

At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant under by a series of incredible efforts of
strength. Once pinned, with my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I rested for a moment
to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was
apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I remembered that I usually placed under my
pillow, before going to bed, a large yellow silk pocket-handkerchief. I felt for it instantly; it was there. In a few
seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the creature’s arms.

I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to turn on the gas, and, having first seen what
my midnight assailant was like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a certain pride in not giving
the alarm before; I wished to make the capture alone and unaided.

Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a
few steps to make to reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like
a vice. At last I got within arm’s length of the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay. Quick
as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full flood of light. Then I turned to look at my
captive.

I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I
must have shrieked with terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the inmates of the house.
I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. I saw nothing! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a
breathing, panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a throat as warm, and apparently
fleshly, as my own; and yet, with this living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and all in
the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld nothing! Not even an outline — a vapor!

I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident
thoroughly. Imagination in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.

It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin
was smooth, like my own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone — and yet utterly invisible!

I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful instinct must have sustained me; for
absolutely, in place of loosening my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength in my moment
of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force that I felt the creature shivering with agony.

Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon as he beheld my face — which, I suppose,
must have been an awful sight to look at — he hastened forward, crying, “Great Heaven, what has happened?”

“Hammond! Hammond!” I cried, “come here. Oh, this is awful! I have been attacked in bed by something or other, which
I have hold of; but I can’t see it — I can’t see it!”

Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my countenance, made one or two steps forward with an
anxious yet puzzled expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my visitors. This suppressed laughter
made me furious. To laugh at a human being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. Now, I can
understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for
assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking
crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood.

“Hammond! Hammond!” I cried again, despairingly, “for God’s sake come to me. I can hold the — the thing but a short
while longer. It is overpowering me. Help me! Help me!”

“I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision,” I answered, in the same low tone. “Don’t you see how it shakes my
whole frame with its struggles? If you don’t believe me convince yourself. Feel it — touch it.”

Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry of horror burst from him. He had felt it!

In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of cord, and was the next instant winding it and
knotting it about the body of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.

“Harry,” he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved his presence of mind, he was deeply moved,
“Harry, it’s all safe now. You may let go, old fellow, if you’re tired. The Thing can’t move.”

I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.

[Illustration: “BOTH OF US— CONQUERING OUR FEARFUL REPUGNANCE TO TOUCH THE INVISIBLE CREATURE— LIFTED IT FROM THE
GROUND, MANACLED AS IT WAS, AND TOOK IT TO MY BED.”]

Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord, that bound the Invisible, twisted round his hand, while before him,
self-supporting as it were, he beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a vacant space. I
never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe. Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination
which I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and one could perceive at a glance that,
although stricken with fear, he was not daunted.

The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene between
Hammond and myself — who beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something — who beheld me almost sinking from
physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was over — the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,
when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled from the apartment. The few who remained clustered
near the door and could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still incredulity broke out through their
terror. They had not the courage to satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged of some of
the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the existence in that room of a living being which was
invisible. They were incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a solid, living, breathing body
be invisible, they asked. My reply was this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us — conquering our fearful
repugnance to touch the invisible creature — lifted it from the ground, manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its
weight was about that of a boy of fourteen.

“Now, my friends,” I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature suspended over the bed, “I can give you
self-evident proof that here is a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good enough to watch
the surface of the bed attentively.”

I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so calmly; but I had recovered from my first
terror, and felt a sort of scientific pride in the affair, which dominated every other feeling.

The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given signal Hammond and I let the creature fall.
There was the dull sound of a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A deep impression
marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed
from the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.

We remained silent for some time, listening to the low irregular breathing of the creature on the bed and watching
the rustle of the bed-clothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement. Then Hammond spoke.

“Harry, this is awful.”

“Ay, awful.”

“But not unaccountable.”

“Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred since the birth of the world. I know not what
to think, Hammond. God grant that I am not mad and that this is not an insane fantasy!”

“Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch but which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual
that it strikes us with terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a piece of pure glass. It is
tangible and transparent. A certain chemical coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to be
totally invisible. It is not theoretically impossible, mind you, to make a glass which shall not reflect a
single ray of light — a glass so pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass through it as
they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We do not see the air, and yet we feel it.”

“That’s all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances. Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe.
This thing has a heart that palpitates — a will that moves it — lungs that play, and inspire and respire.”

“You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,” answered the doctor gravely. “At the meetings
called ‘spirit circles,’ invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round the table — warm,
fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal life.”

“What? Do you think, then, that this thing is ——”

“I don’t know what it is,” was the solemn reply; “but please the gods I will, with your assistance, thoroughly
investigate it.”

We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside of the unearthly being that tossed and
panted until it was apparently wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it slept.

The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on the landing outside my room, and Hammond and
myself were lions. We had to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary prisoner, for as yet not
one person in the house except ourselves could be induced to set foot in the apartment.

The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in which the bed-clothes were moved in its
efforts to escape. There was something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand indications of the
terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty which themselves were invisible.

Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to discover some means by which we might realize the
shape and general appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our hands over the creature’s form,
its outlines and lineaments were human. There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which, however,
was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing
the being on a smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk, as shoemakers trace the outline of the foot. This
plan was given up as being of no value. Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.

A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster-of-Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and
satisfy all our wishes. But how to do it. The movements of the creature would disturb the setting of the plastic
covering, and distort the mould. Another thought. Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs — that was
evident by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do with it what we would. Doctor X—— was
sent for; and after the worthy physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded to administer
the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled to remove the fetters from the creature’s body, and a
modeller was busily engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In five minutes more we had a mould,
and before evening a rough fac-simile of the Mystery. It was shaped like a man — distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but
still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and its limbs revealed a muscular development
that was unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustave Doré, or Callot, or Tony
Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible. There is a face in one of the latter’s illustrations to Un Voyage
où il vous plaira, which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but does not equal it. It was the
physiognomy of what I should fancy a ghoul might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh.

Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to secrecy, it became a question what was to be
done with our Enigma? It was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was equally impossible that
such an awful being should be let loose upon the world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature’s
destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would undertake the execution of this horrible semblance to
a human being? Day after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left the house. Mrs. Moffat was in
despair, and threatened Hammond and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our
answer was, “We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It
appeared in your house. On you the responsibility rests.” To this there was, of course, no answer. Mrs. Moffat could
not obtain for love or money a person who would even approach the Mystery.

At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the
lungs to inspire. We hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that viewless corpse
into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to Doctor X— — who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.

As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have drawn up this narrative of an event the
most singular that has ever come to my knowledge.

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